Tiana's Turmoil

By Dave Peall

Tiana Baumann, a mixed race 17-year-old high school student, feels trapped. As our heroine struggles with her career options, fate seems to be guiding her footsteps into hostile territory, a male dominated trade. Even her new high school psychotic tormentor tells her that girls are much better suited to being fashion designers, dance instructors, and checkout chicks. Sheilas just don't belong in a bloke's world.

She battles small town thinking, racial and gender prejudice as she dreams of travelling the new world she's been introduced to by a crusty, vagabond refrigeration technician, Iggy the Iceman.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dave Peall
• Release date: Sep 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9780648358916

Dave Peall

After over half a century of hands-on trade related activities, I'm swapping spanners and screwdrivers for something I love ... storytelling. As a high-school dropout at grade 10, I found university a challenge. Four years hard slog resulted in a credible GPA, and a Bachelor degree in Creative Writing from the University of the Sunshine Coast. My first work is an adventure story of a heroine who is helped by a crusty mentor to overcome bullying, career choice angst, racial and gender discrimination to become a "Tradie".

Book preview

Tiana's

Turmoil

© Dave Peall

Australia 2018

Tiana's

Turmoil

© Dave Peall

Australia 2018.

The right of Dave Peall to be identified as the

author of this work has been asserted by him.

ISBN: 978-0-6483589-1-6

Smashwords edition

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All rights reserved.

This book is sold subject to the conditions that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permissions of the author.

This book was written to encourage women to consider a career as a tradie. The book is a work of fiction. The potential for adventure and career advancement are loosely based on the author's experience, but the scenarios described require the reader to willingly suspend disbelief. Names, character, places, incidents, and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to those of whom I boast …

the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost

and of course

my beautiful Jacqueline.

NARRATOR’S NOTE:

Allow me to introduce myself – I’m your story teller, James Harrison. In a previous life, I wore many hats. Amongst other things, I was a newspaper editor, a property developer, a politician, a risk taker, but I’m probably best remembered as an innovator – an entrepreneur. Most Google searches will tell you that I was the Australian inventor of refrigeration. A century or so later, I see exciting long-term career prospects for the industry, even though it literally killed me to give it up.

At the beginning of September 1893, there I was, sitting up in bed, trying to write an article for the paper. I remember feeling drowsy, too tired to even move my pen across the paper, so I started sharing some ideas with one of our daughters. And that was it. As they say, ‘What goes around comes around.’ So here I am, a hundred and twenty-five years or so later, back writing about life again.

Just as Tiana Baumann’s mother questioned the need for the family to be as poor as church mice, I have to ask, ‘Why me? Who decided that I have to be your story teller?’ It’s a relatively simple tale about a teenage girl who, after a serious glitch in her plans, now has no more idea than John Pascoe Fawkner’s goat what she wants to be when she grows up. But then again, who does any more?

The more I became involved in all the twists and turns of her life, the bullying and the prejudice against women, and particularly women of mixed race, the more it disturbed me.

I did develop an appreciation, a bond with her mentor and spirit guide, Iggy the Iceman, and I do agree with one of his favourite sayings.

‘Without refrigeration, the world would be rotten.’

Iggy is also on record as saying that those who design, build, install and maintain your refrigeration and airconditioning machinery are today’s unsung heroes. From a career perspective, I can see it's a niche market where skilled people with relevant experience are always in high demand.

INTRODUCTION

‘Good morning ladies and gentlemen,’ the pilot’s voice droned through the aircraft. ‘We've started our final descent to today's destination, Rock City, Central Queensland.’

Tiana woke with a jolt, adjusted her glasses, and peered through the wispy clouds outside the right hand window. The plane skewed and leveled, allowing glimpses of their holiday destination as it rolled beneath her. Emu Sands looked idyllic. A sleepy little fishing village, just as the brochures had promised. The surf her mother had vouched for rolled onto a secluded beach. Palm trees swayed in the breeze. Just the place to take a couple of week's break from the nasty bullying mob at school. The plane started to bank to the left again when something caught her eye. What was the significance of the jetty's long, hard wooden finger poking obtrusively into the creek's wide mouth?

Her entire life was about to change, but in ways she could never imagine in her wildest dreams.

CHAPTER ONE

My involvement in Tiana's turmoil all sprang from a curious connection with the man internationally known as Iggy the Iceman. Turns out, he’s a distant relative of a good friend of mine. He started researching my history, and this sparked a desire in him to create a copper statue of me, in the style of what is called steam punk art. This activity triggered a cog in the mechanism that catapulted me into their parallel universe. There is another link between Iggy’s skill as a refrigeration technician and my own early endeavours to make ice in Melbourne, but I’ll share more of that story later.

I first met the Baumann family sometime before the middle of last year, probably a bit before the end of Tiana's penultimate year at high school. I can still picture her brave mum, sitting as far away from the heated argument as she could, softly sobbing on the couch. The whole ugly scene was another argument about money. Her father was literally hopping mad – red-faced and shaking with anger. He'd discovered a receipt for some makeup Tiana had bought. In spite of Tiana holding down a job she hated, her Dad had decided the money had been wasted. Flick Baumann had earned his nick-name. Anyone who clashed with him was